Storytelling Trees

By Micki Huysken

Cedar trees grow in the Alaskan forest. A Tlingit (CLING-it)

Indian walks among them searching for the right one. He finds
a strong, straight tree that has been growing long before his
grandfather's grandfather lived there. He marks its rough
bark. This is the first step in making a magnificent storytelling
tree.
Long ago, before writing was used by Indians, totem poles were
carved to tell stories of battles or to record events happening
in the tribe.
Shapes of bears, wolves, whales, eagles, and other wild
creatures were carved into soft tree trunks.

A storyteller read the tree from top to bottom. Stories

often included animals with superhuman powers and stories
about Eagle and Raven clans. These totem poles were read
again and again like a library of wooden stories.
Have you seen pictures of totem poles or visited the state of
Alaska or Washington where poles stand? Even today, totem-
pole carving continues in Ketchikan, Alaska, where Tlingit
Indians still live.
Once, a stone adze (an ax-like tool) brought down an 80-
foot giant. Today, chain saws do the work in less time.
Thick bark is stripped away; then knots, once burned with hot
rocks, are sanded smooth. At last, the tree is ready for the
master carver chosen by the tribe. Poles that once took a year
to carve can be completed in three months.
The carver chants to help his concentration and to keep a
cutting rhythm. It is a chant that he learned form his father
who learned it from his. Wood chips pepper the air. Animals
with beaver tails, whales, wolves, and birds with oversized
beaks are chiseled into the soft wood. Some carvings have
human shapes. Black paint dabbed into pale wooden eyes gives
them a look of power. Long ago, artists mixed salmon eggs
with minerals like hematite, graphite, and copper to make
bright-colored paint for the poles.

At last, the weary carver puts down his tools. He is ready

for a crane to lift the new pole. He thinks back and
remembers stories of his grandfather's first pole rising. That
one took place at the river's edge. No crane was used then,
just dozens of men holding tightly to ropes.
Their groans rippled like a chorus of bears; sweat beaded on
their backs. Drums and voices swelled like thunder when the
pole rose.
The old carver blinks away the memories as a ray of sun
touches his sensitive eyes. The steel arm crane is placing his
new pole upright facing the road. Arriving visitors look up in
awe. Cheers and laughter roll forth like water from a bubbling
pot. What was once a mighty cedar growing tall in the Alaskan
forest, is now a magnificent totem pole.
Think about the stories told by your parents and grandparents.
If you put those stories on a totem pole, what would your
storytelling tree look like?